California: San Francisco fatal dog mauling conviction upheld

CALIFORNIA -- Despite legal flaws in a 2002 trial, a federal appeals court this week upheld the second-degree murder conviction of a San Francisco woman whose two Presa Canario dogs fatally mauled a Saint Mary’s College women’s lacrosse coach in their apartment building.

In a three-page order, a unanimous 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected Marjorie Knoller’s latest attempt to overturn her unique second-degree murder conviction for the 2001 death of her neighbor, 33-year-old Diane Whipple, who was attacked by two dogs named Bane and Hera.

Knoller’s lawyers had urged the appeals court to overturn the conviction, arguing that the prosecutor committed misconduct during closing arguments and the judge improperly threatened Knoller’s trial lawyer with jail if she continued to raise objections. The 9th Circuit agreed that the trial was problematic, but that the mistakes did not tarnish the verdict.

“Undoubtedly, the trial judge’s threat of incarceration for further objection, coupled with the prosecutor’s inappropriate argument, rose to the level of constitutional error,” the 9th Circuit wrote. “However, Knoller has not established ‘actual prejudice or that no fairminded jurist could agree with the state courts’ (application of the law to her case).”

Dennis Riordan, Knoller’s lawyer, said Friday he will pursue further appeals on her behalf. Knoller can ask the 9th Circuit to rehear the case with an 11-judge panel, or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Knoller is serving a 15-years-to-life term in state prison. Her appeal centers on several key issues, including the claim the trial judge muzzled her defense lawyer and then allowed the prosecutor to inflame the jury in closing arguments with remarks ordinarily barred from trials.

“There has never been a weaker murder case (of this kind) prosecuted in this state,” Knoller’s lawyers told the 9th Circuit in court papers.

The appeal revisited one of the most notorious incidents in recent Northern California history. Knoller’s trial, along with that of her husband and fellow lawyer Robert Noel, was moved to Los Angeles because of the extensive pretrial publicity.

Knoller and Noel were prosecuted because they failed to take steps to prevent the dogs’ attack on Whipple in the hallway of their apartment building, where she ultimately bled to death from dozens of wounds. Noel, convicted of involuntary manslaughter, served his prison time and has already been released on parole.

But Knoller bore the brunt of the charges, blamed for failing to muzzle the dogs — which the couple was taking care of for two former clients imprisoned at Pelican Bay State Prison — despite knowing of their potential dangerousness when she took them out in the apartment building.

When Knoller was sentenced, a San Francisco judge noted her lack of remorse and failure to take action while Whipple was under attack as reasons for the potential life prison term.

Sharon Smith, Whipple’s partner, successfully sued Knoller and Noel after the criminal trial, securing $1.5 million in damages.

In particular, the legal argument relies on the fact the trial judge eventually warned Knoller’s lawyer she could no longer object to concerns about the prosecutor’s arguments, even threatening her with jail, and then allowed then-San Francisco prosecutor James Hammer to ask the jury to imagine Whipple’s death, “to re-create Diane’s Whipple’s time in the hallway.”

The California attorney general’s office, which defended the conviction, argued there were no trial errors that improperly influenced the jury’s verdict. “The error was harmless under the circumstances and in light of the strong evidence of guilt,” the state’s lawyers told the 9th Circuit.

(Santa Cruz Sentinel - ‎Feb 5, 2016)